I have had this problem for 2 weeks now and have been sending and receiving email from the game tech support site almost daily, but to date without success - hope you can help?

The game installs ok, and I have even (on occasions - because of numerous uninstalls then reinstalls) allowed the game's directX 8 to be installed although I already have dx9.0a. I have tried launching the game as follows:

1. From the desktop icon2. From 'Conspiracies' in program menu3. From Pentium 3 in the program menu and4. From Pentium 4 in the program menu.

I have a completely up to date WindowsXP(home) with Athlon 3000+ processor, excellent Radeon video card and loads of memory.

Numbers 1 to 3 above launch into a picture of skyscrapers and at the bottom of the page 3 red lines begin to crawl from left to right across the page. However, these lines never get further than 2 inches before stopping! No 4 above just does not work but I'm not surprised as that is for Pentium and I have Athlon. I realise I should launch from the 'Conspiracies' at number 1 above but this will not work.

Perhaps anyone out there who had a similar problem which they resolved would be good enough to point me in the right direction please?

I should finally add that I have other games installed at the moment eg Uru, BS3 and Runaway all of which work without any problems.

DirectX 8 will not install over DirectX 9. At least it shouldn't. Microsoft makes DirectX so you can't install an earlier version over a later one. If you check DXDIAG, it should still say you have DirectX 9. You may want to update to DirectX 9b if you still have 9a though. 9b should have some bug fixes.

Check the Properties of the desktop icon to make sure it is running the generic Conspiracies exe and not one of the Pentium ones. If it is running the generic version, there should be no difference between starting the game from the shortcut as opposed to the Start\Programs menu.

I don't know which ATI drivers you're using. You might try a different version. I wouldn't reduce acceleration too much since the game does use 3D.

Be sure to follow their instructions for uninstalling the old drivers and reinstalling the new ones. If you are using the drivers that came with the card, they may need updating to work properly with DirectX 9b.

There should be a link for "installation tips" on the page where you download the driver. You may want to print them out to use for reference before installing.

I don't know which driver version would work best for Conspiracies. I was using older drivers when I played, but I had old DirectX 8.1 on my computer.

Interesting, I've got almost the exact opposite problem. Conspiracies runs without a hitch on my machine, but BS3 locks it up. I'm running Win98SE, AMD Athlon XP 2100+, ATI Radeon 9500 Pro video card. I have version 3.8 of the ATI Catalyst video drivers. I'd be interested in what version of the video drivers your running. I'm not sure about Win XP, but you can find it on the display properties under Win98.

Thanks Bernie. You have Catalyst 3.4 drivers, the latest version is 3.9. I should clarify some. BS3 is the only even fairly recent game I've had any problems with. The only other game that gave me anywhere near as much trouble with the Radeon is an older DOS game called The Riddle of Master Lu. Other than those two, I've been able to play anything I wanted. Of course, I was running the Catalyst 3.4 drivers up until a month or so ago too. Good luck with Conspiracicies. Its a pretty cool game.